“WE ARE NOT GOING TO LEAVE THE RIVER”: RE-EXISTENCE OF INDIGENOUS TEACHERS IN THE FIGHT FOR THE COMMONS IN THE NOTHERN OF CAUCA, COLOMBIA

ABSTRACT

A cartographic reading of the territory’s political-ontological tensions is first made with the objective to analyze the ontological tensions faced by Self-Education and the practices of re-existence of indigenous teachers facing groups of powers in the northern region of Cauca, Colombia. Subsequently, the mechanisms of struggle carried out by the indigenous teachers are presented for the prevalence of the ontologies and the villages’ life projects. Therefore, the referential framework is defined from other anti-colonial and anti-capitalist pedagogies and contributions that arise epistemo- logically and politically from the decolonial turn and others from critical pedagogy. The data was collected through an ethnographic method during a prolonged stay in the department of Cauca in 2017 and was systematized through the method proposed by Bertely (2000) on educational ethnography.

KEYWORDS:
Indigenous teachers; indigenous education; coloniality; capitalism; re-existence